CHICAGO/TORONTO: Dry bones and new life; urgent need for donations and people

CPTnet
31 March 2008CHICAGO/TORONTO: Dry bones and new life; urgent need for donations and people

Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) cannot continue to walk beside peacemakers in all our current project sites without more donations and people to do the work.

CPT works in zones of lethal conflict. These are valleys of dry bones like the one that the prophet Ezekiel saw in his vision (See Ezekiel 37.) In those very valleys, we also witness the restoration to life.

Partners call us to join them. It is a troubling thing to refuse such an invitation. But we need more CPTers willing to answer that call. We need more financial support to deepen the work in each of these contexts. How will God bring back life?

In Palestine, the dead bones of previous peace agreements and conferences litter the land. Yet shepherds reclaim their grazing lands and shopkeepers re-open their stores in front of occupation check points. Bone joins to bone.

In Colombia, the powerful seekers of gold, palm oil, cattle, and petroleum hire re-branded paramilitaries to drive out small farmers, miners, and indigenous peoples. But the U.S. Congress reduced its military aid to Colombia for the first time in years. Flesh and sinews cover the bones.

In Algonquin territory in Ontario the courts punish First Nations peoples for nonviolently protecting their land. Local non-Algonquin residents, who call themselves settlers, and First Nations peoples push forward to find an opening for a truer peace. Skin covers the flesh.

In Iraqi Kurdistan, terror swirls from repressive forces within, occupying and insurgent forces to the south, Turkish and Iranian forces from north and east. Yet, in the eye of this storm, independent and nonviolent movements gather, train, strategize, and act. The breath of God comes into the body.

In east Africa, the Philippines, and the Mexico/U.S. borderlands â€“ CPTers witness war, dispossession, hunger, racism, and injustice. Yet in each location we also see people stand on their feet alive again to hope.

Join a Peacemaker Delegation <http://cpt.org/participate/delegation>: Short-term teams (eight-fourteen days) travel to crisis settings to protect human rights, engage in public peace witness, and report to home churches and meetings. Open to applicants over age eighteen.

Become a CPTer: Join the Peacemaker Corps <http://cpt.org/participate/peacemaker>: Teams of trained peacemakers carry out CPTâ€™s violence-reduction ministry at home and abroad. Corps members commit to full-time service for three years. Reservists support CPT work for periods of at least two weeks each year.